


Fear Not

by Tammany



Series: The Sussex Downs [7]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-07 00:18:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20300338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: Greg's not a sucker. Nor will he ever likely be played for one. He is, however, polite.Which proves to be just as well.Meanwhile: Crowley, angst, kids. Nanny Ashtoreth.





	Fear Not

Angels and demons. Huh. All riiiiight. And Mycroft not sending them on their way with a swift kick in the arse?

Greg’s copper experience was screaming to high holy… well. Under the circumstances maybe not to heaven. His own first reaction was that the odds of anyone actually being an angel or a demon were vanishingly small, compared with high odds of anyone being a slick con-artist of the sort precisely designed to end up a project for his MET division. He’d generally go with the odds, himself.

But when Mycroft Holmes looked at a pretty little spark of charisma and said, cold stone sober, “You are not human. What are you?” and she looked back and said, “An angel, I’m afraid,” and Mycroft said, “Well, that would explain a lot,” rather than, “Do not mess with me, my fine madam!” well…

And when it matched the odd chiming of his own sense of peculiarity?

He was willing to at least play along, until data indicated otherwise or Mycroft (or perhaps Sherlock) gave a good sharp shout to the contrary.

That said, if forced into total and complete honesty? (Very hard to do with a copper who’d worked as embedded MI5 for decades, now…) If forced, Greg would not have said he believed them. He’d have said he was giving it a pass—for now.

Angels? Demons?

Riiiiiight.

But they were quite charming, as so many good con artists were. And since Mike was sounding a bit like he might consider retiring, or at least moving back from “high holy administrative analyst spook central” to “somewhat sanctified consulting analyst spook, on-call” Greg figured they could afford the luxury of amusing guests. Very nice ones, so near as he could see. So long as they didn’t try to make his Mike sign away the family fortune, he was willing to factor them into the entertainment budget.

That still didn’t get them past the sniff test. And Greg was a copper. He liked to know what he was dealing with.

Which is how it came to pass.

Mycroft’s shore-side estate was pure chaos, crammed to the gills with mighty-thewed smuggl…er, moving men; John; Rosie; and Sherlock himself rocketing around trying to be everywhere at once, which he managed better than most. Mike himself had gone out for the day—by which Lestrade concluded he was going to find a place to park in pleasant shade with good mobile reception, call Anthea to make arrangements so that he and Greg could take a month or two more off while they contemplated early retirement—and then nap. It had been a long night, with two sparkling, delightful con artists who seemed to need no sleep whatsoever.

It was a factor Greg had added in to his data selection. He’d also noted that the so-called “demon” ate next to nothing (though even he had succumbed to Greg’s trifle), but that the angel made up for it, and that both of them could go through good booze at a rate that did approach the supernatural.

They did get quite tipsy, though. No immunity to a good drunk…

At least…

Never mind…

In any case, there was the bustle and roar, with Mike out of the house, and Greg increasingly testy. About the time he found himself wondering if he could kill Rosie and bury her in the beach and get away with it, he knew it was time to pull out for a bit. He liked Rosie, even if the whines of a reasonably grumpy six-year-old were wearing.

And then he thought, with narrowed eyes and tart amusement, that he’d played good host yesterday… Perhaps his neighbors could return the favor for a few hours today. At the very least offer him a shady corner of the garden and a deck chair and a cold beer, so he could nap and read his book. Put all the bellowing and shouting and Sherlockian melodrama and juvenile misery and Watsonian cluelessness a full estate away, and make damned good and sure everyone understood that this was not his circus—and that Sherlock’s crowd were, for once, not his monkeys.

So he loped upstairs and got a pair of dry swim shorts and a towel in case he wanted to go down to the beach, and his latest summer read (Raising Steam—a reread now that he had time to savor it properly). He shoved his feet into flip-flops, pushed sunglasses onto his face, and sloped on out of the house with barely a wave to John as he stepped out onto the public access path heading toward the angel and demon’s estate—which he was already dubbing “Dun Manifestin” in his mind, in honor of the pantheonic location of Discworld’s deities.

It was a glorious day. Again. After decades of London Greg hardly knew what to make of it. Hell, even Sussex wasn’t supposed to be quite this nice. Bees in the heath, blossoms on the bough, blue skies with pretty mackerel clouds. Breeze off the ocean—again. Sun but not too much—again.

Now, if he really believed in angels and demons, he thought, he’d be tempted to think the two were fudging the weather in their own favor. But he didn’t, and his experience of con artists in Serious Crimes suggested that they might claim those skills, but generally failed at about the same rate as any weatherman.

He stretched in the sun. He hummed under his breath.(Don’t Stop Me Now, by Queen, because it was that kind of day…)

When he got to the hedge that marked out the upper yards of the estate from the path, he considered.

Most of the estates included some fence or hedge or marker to make it clear to passers-by that the land was private. Mycroft’s place was unusual in that it seemed almost to tumble from hill to sea, with areas marked out but not contained or clearly defended. Dun Manifestin exhibited the opposite tendency. It was cut off by a heavy, high hedgerow dense with elderberry and brambles and beach plum and apples. It suggested a secret garden behind.

Set into the hedge was a gate. The gate was latched with a swinging bar of wood cut and painted to resemble a burning sword. Greg looked, but failed to see a bell or buzzer. He risked opening the latch and stepped in.

It was like entering a cool forest. The hedge was a good three feet deep, and the shade was unmistakeable.

A path led uphill, past rows of high-raised garden beds crammed full of vegetables and flowers so perfect they looked artificial, or at least enhanced. The area was bursting with life: lizards scurried along wood bedding walls. Snakes darted fast among the stems of melons. A kaleidoscope of prim, polite chickens clucked along the paths of the kitchen garden. Rosemary and fennel and dill and mustered massed at the edges of the space.

A path led higher, to a plateau followed by still more hedging—roses, this time.

Lestrade climbed up.

Just as he reached the area, he heard voice.

“Here, angel. Out by the pool.”

“Oh, good. I was afraid I’d lost you, my dear. Are you decent?”

“Not hardly. Not after a whole day dressed for the neighbors.” There was laughter in Crowley’s voice, but it was soft—muted. Not as sharp and caustic as he’d been earlier in the day.

“Oh, good. It happens I quite like you indecent, you dear old serpent.” A gate beyond opened and shut, the sound echoing oddly in whatever area lay beyond the hedge. Then came sounds that suggested a few moments mutually dedicated to affection, of a gentle and modest sort. Just a little tickle-and-slap, without much slap at all.

“Budge up,” Angel said, softly. “There has to be room for me on that bench.”

“I can miracle some up for you.”

“If you’d be a dear, that would be grand. Ah, better. You are a bony thing.”

“And you love me that way…”

“That I do.” There was an uneasy silence, and then Angel added, “Which is why I am asking, dearest. Are you all right?”

“Me? Fine.”

“It’s just as well you can’t go to church, love—your notion of confession leaves much to be desired. Again—are you all right?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well, that wasn’t a lie outright, just an evasion. I saw you, dearest. With the child. You do know Warlock’s all right? And Adam. And the Them. They’re all fine, and they write us often. You don’t have to worry about them any more than any parent or teacher would. You’ve done well by them.”

“Humph.” The sound was utterly unconvinced…the sound Mycroft made when you pointed out that, Brexit or no Brexit, he’d kept the nation safe for quite a lot time barring the idiots he wasn’t allowed to assassinate. Then came a deep sigh, and the sound of a body scrambling off a bench, and feet slapping on concrete, and stronger echoes as the sharp cracks and Crowley’s voice got louder.

“All right. All right. But—just cause she’s a nice kid who deserves a better Da doesn’t mean she’s all right. That Watson: he’s not so bad as some, but he lives in his own fantasy all the time. He misses these huge things, and instead of figuring out how to see better, when he does notice that reality’s not much like he thought, he makes the wrong decision and closes his eyes and sings ‘la-la-la, I can’t heeaar you.’”

Greg crept closer, unsure what he wanted to do. Something was wrong, and the copper in him was torn between “observation” and “helping out a couple having a bit of a domestic.” He reckoned his angles, and peeked into the space beyond from behind a truss of golden roses that would break up the lines and patterns of his face, providing cover.

It was a fenced in pool, large and deep, with room for laps, all done in gaudy Mediterranean tile in blues and golds with flashes of red and green. The pavement around the pool was textured for safety, and Crowley, naked as the day he was born, was pacing the circumference of the pool. He was miserable…clearly, dejectedly miserable.

“Crowley, my dear…” Angel’s voice trailed off, as dejected as her partner.

She, too, was dressed in skin.

The author of his reality must be a man, Greg thought, hysterically.

(In his mind, God whispered, “Not, you twat. You tell me who’s the creator, and I’ll point out how many good ideas my women have had!”)

Crowley looked across the pool, shoulders drooped. “Why don’t they take care of them?”

Angel stood and walked barefoot over to her partner, putting her hands gently on Crowley’s shoulders. “Oh, love. They live such short lives, and have to learn so quickly. They’ve barely even learned how to love once, and then they die.”

“When did you hear from Warlock last?”

“Just this week, dear.”

“He doesn’t write me as often.”

“He writes her longer though. He knows he can send notes to Brother Francis that aren’t much more than, ‘Taking advanced ed and do not understand trigonometry at all.’ Nanny is for bigger ideas. ‘I fell in love with my best friend.’”

“Then why hasn’t he written?” There was pain in the man’s voice—a guilty, “I didn’t do enough” sort of pain.

“Shhhh. That just means he hasn’t fallen in love with his best friend yet.” Then, softly, “But I have, my dear. And I assure you, I need Nanny quite badly.”

Which sounded entirely too much like a cheap porn movie—until the air seemed to shiver, and then Crowley was gone, and a lean whip of a woman stood naked in the swimming area in his place.

Later he would think how much she was of a type with Irene Adler, though at least twice as tall. But she was slender and supple, as skinny as Crowley was, and russet-haired. Distinctly, unmistakably female. When Angel reached her, she melted into the little blonde’s round, welcoming arms, showing no sign of concern that her…friend…was face-high to her tits, or that she had to rest her own head on her friend’s as they embraced.

“Help,” he…she… They gasped. “Help, Angel. So many of them die so soon.”

“We can’t save them all, beloved. We don’t need to rescue them all.”

“That idiot dragged her down here without a second thought.”

“She’s clean, unbruised, well-fed, healthy. He’s a bit of a clod, nothing worse, and she knows she’s loved: by him and all his friends. Mycroft and Sherlock and that pretty copper love her and take care of her, too. She’s fine, dear. She’s fine. Shhhhh, Nan… Shhhhhh. ”

Crowley clung close.

God. They made a picture, Lestrade thought—and then it hit him, how much this person looked like not just Irene Adler—but like far too many people. As though she blended Crowley and Mike and Sherlock and Irene, and they were of a single shared bloodline, varying but reliable: glorious greyhounds with shining ears. Magical and strange…

Fairies.

Djnn.

Angels…and demons.

Angel looked up, then, past the hedge and past the truss of roses, to Greg, hiding in the hedge.

She smiled. “I’ll take care of Nanny now, now, dear boy. No burden on you. But—forgive yourself for snooping. You’re just looking out for them.” She jerked her chin. “Go around the far side of the pool enclosure. There’s another walk up to a shade garden. Read there. If you wait long enough we can talk later.”

Her voice carried without being loud.

Greg shivered.

Angels. Angels and devils.

“Don’t worry,” she said again. “Or--Fear Not! I’ll explain it all later.”

He slunk away then, shamed…but also stunned and entranced.

It was true. A demon and an angel lived next door to him.

And they were kind…

**Teaser for next time:** “Don’t be havin’ with me, Sherlock, or I will tell you more than you want to know about a Pakistani grandmother who makes roti and Irish brown bread, and has djinn and leprechauns and the Virgin Mary over to tea. And let’s not even mention her cat. Understand, lad? Just don’t be havin’ with me.”


End file.
